


interbellum (it's a civil war of the heart)

by whittler_of_words



Series: seek not valor in the hearts of men [1]
Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Glorified Wardrobe Malfunction, Identity Issues, Post Season 3, and merlin is barely any help, in which claire and jim are both trying NOT to skirt around the aftermath of the final battle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 14:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: Jim struggles a moment with his inability to use his own amulet, before he resigns himself to the fact that the best person to talk to about this would be the person who actually made it in the first place.  “...It won’t come off.”“Well, of course not,” Merlin says, not missing a beat. “When you immersed yourself into the elixir, it became a part of you. I’m afraid you’ll be wearing that armor until the day you die.”“What?!”__And some people thinkpubertyis bad.





	interbellum (it's a civil war of the heart)

**Author's Note:**

> it is time.

“Okay,” Jim says. “Okay. One...two... _three_!” He snaps his fingers in time with the pulse of his amulet, closing his eyes. He opens them after a moment, slowly.

Nothing happened. 

“Great.” He closes his eyes again. This time when he places an open palm over the grooves of the amulet, a crease appears between his brows as he pushes himself even deeper into the thread of magic connecting him to the stone. After he’d first gotten the hang of it, cloaking himself in the blue wreath of magic and dispersing it afterwards had become even easier than zipping his favorite jacket up and down. 

As it stands now, he has no fucking idea what he’s supposed to do about the fact that his armor just won’t come _off._

“And what are you doing now, young man?”

Jim frowns, but doesn’t open his eyes as he says, “Nothing.” 

“I can see that.” The trace of amusement in Merlin’s voice finally irks Jim enough that he cracks an eye open. It’s not fair to say that the wizard is travelling with them; probably the opposite, in fact, with how little he’s actually around. He’d supervised their use of Trollmarket’s gyre to the Quagawumps’ swamp, being the closest station to New Jersey that could handle transporting so many trolls, but he’d disappeared almost entirely afterwards.

Almost. Because he still shows up at the absolute _worst_ moments.

Jim struggles a moment with his inability to use his own amulet, before he resigns himself to the fact that the best person to talk to about this would be the person who actually made it in the first place. “...It won’t come off.”

“Well, of course not,” Merlin says, not missing a beat. “When you immersed yourself into the elixir, it became a part of you. I’m afraid you’ll be wearing that armor until the day you die.”

“What?!”

“Kidding!” Merlin puts his hands up disarmingly. “By my beard, you youth have no sense of humor these days.”

Groaning, Jim presses his hands into his eyes. His weird, trollish hands. No more than two minutes in the wizard’s presence, and Jim can already feel a headache coming on. It’s nearly enough to make him go back to the day’s encampment, for all that he’d wandered out into the South Carolina wilderness in an attempt at solitude. He momentarily weighs his options. Needy trolls, or insufferable wizard?

“Jim?”

Claire has her hand against the trunk of a tree a couple yards away, looking tired and a little concerned. Jim is suddenly aware that he’d sunken into a crouch at some point, and while the pose is familiar and comfortable, there’s a small part of him that’s embarrassed at the almost animal-like posture. He ignores Merlin’s gaze on him as he rises to his feet. 

“Uh - Claire! What are you doing up, it’s almost midday.”

“I could ask you the same thing, you know,” she retorts, eyebrow raised. 

“Young James is having difficulty with his amulet,” Merlin interjects mildly. “It seems he is unable to remove it at the moment.”

“Oh,” she says, blinking. “I thought you hadn’t taken it off yet because you didn’t have any extra clothes.” And then, at the dawning look of realization on Jim’s face, “...You forgot you don’t have extra clothes, didn’t you.”

“We can’t all be Toby’s Nanna! Extra undies weren’t exactly on the top of my list when it came to things to take with me on this- this, pilgrimage!”

She snorts, and the genuine humor in the sound stops Jim short where he’d been indignantly waving his arms.

“Didn’t you tell me that the amulet would activate on its own when you thought you were in danger at first?” She points towards the amulet in his armor, brushing hanging foliage out of her face as she steps closer. “And my staff--” She falters for a moment before picking the sentence back up again. “My staff couldn’t bring me to you after you changed, like it couldn’t recognize the new you yet. Maybe the amulet is having the same problem. It’s not...used to who you are now, and the fact that everything is okay.”

“Fair Claire, your intellect shines as brightly as your beauty.” Merlin rubs his hands together, a few wayward sparks of magic fizzling out from between his palms. “It’s true that the amulet is bound to you permanently, Jim, but even its magic can be tested by great changes like this, necessary as it was. It will release you from its protection soon. It will simply take time.” He spreads his palms open in a shrug, looking entirely unapologetic.

Even still, Jim allows himself to relax at the confirmation that he won’t be in the armor for the rest of his life. He knows now that he’ll be the Trollhunter for as long as he lives -- has accepted it, and welcomes it -- but to be unable to take it off would feel like really, actually leaving his old self behind.

(Blinky had once told him that there had never been a Trollhunter before who’d ever removed the armor. Indeed, it had only left them the moment they finally turned to stone. The Troll had wondered aloud if Jim was able to remove it because of his humanity; “ _-perhaps because of the fact that you have a foot in both worlds, Master Jim. A Trollish Trollhunter would never have a need to remove their armor, whereas I imagine being unable to do so would be quite devastating for you. Tell me again - did you really quote me in that audition of yours?_ ”

He’s still coming to terms with what it means to be Half-Troll. As he is now, he has more of a “foot in both worlds” than he ever did, while being seperated from both entirely. Every day and night brings a new discovery about himself, some of them welcome, some not, and while there are parts of himself he’s happy to see go, it’s the things that haven’t changed that bring him comfort amidst the confusion.

What would it mean for him if he really couldn’t take the armor off? To have that last little scrap of his humanity taken away?)

“Well, that’s a relief,” Claire says, managing to sum up all of Jim’s thoughts in a single sentence. She smiles, punching his arm lightly. “And hey, that means we get to go clothes shopping! We can pick up some souvenirs for TP while we’re at it.”

He blinks at her, tilting his head. “Shopping? How?”

“Oh, my parents gave me a credit card to help us out in return for me promising to keep up my education on the east coast,” she says, shrugging. “Which is great, because allowance money can’t exactly cover kitchenware.”

“No, that- I mean, that’s great, but I meant more like...” Jim gestures to himself, starting from his waist and bringing his hands up to his...well...he’s kind of gesturing to everything. “ _How_?”

Claire’s smile widens. It’s more of a smirk, really, and Jim is suddenly very, very glad that Claire likes him. “I have a few ideas.”

Jim does notice when he automatically sinks down to his haunches, but he doesn’t try to fight it this time. Claire is already sitting down herself anyway, resting her back against a tree and stretching amidst the brush. He casts a glance around, and - yep, Merlin is gone.

Jim waits to speak until she’s settled against the bark. “Really though. Not that I’m complaining or anything, but why _are_ you here? You have to be exhausted from all the walking. Even if you’re not, you should be out enjoying the sunshine, not...stuck out here in the shade.” _With me,_ Jim doesn’t say.

“Maybe I want to be in the shade.” She sniffs, and Jim knows she caught on to what he really meant. He scratches the back of his head, mildly embarrassed. But then she says, “I couldn’t sleep,” and then, “I just don’t know what to do,” in a small and quiet voice, and Jim looks up at her in concern.

“Claire?” He reaches out to lift her chin, but hesitates at the last second. She raises her head to look at him a moment later anyway, and Jim really sees the bags under eyes, exhaustion she’s been trying so hard to hide ever since they left California.

“Sorry,” she says. “I know it’s dumb, with everything you’re going through. I shouldn’t be complaining about the _dumb staff._ I just- that was my thing, you know? How am I supposed to help you without my magic?” She sniffs again, for an entirely different reason, and Jim only hesitates a little before he places his hand on her arm.

“You help me every time I see you, Claire,” he says. “Let’s be real. We’d all be lost without you, magic or no.”

“Thanks, Jim.” She covers his hand with her own. “It’s just hard to not feel kind of useless.”

There’s a retort to that sitting on Jim’s tongue. He forces himself to say nothing for a second, making himself imagine what it would be like to suddenly have the amulet stripped away from him. Not that he has to imagine very hard; those few minutes in that alternate time, where Merlin had given him a second chance and Draal had become Trollhunter, where the shattered remains of the amulet had been nothing more than garbage in his hands as the world burned outside the museum doors - Jim still has nightmares. He takes a breath.

“Then find a way to use magic without the staff.” He smiles at her as she frowns, obviously thinking. “You don’t have to be a witch or a warrior to be worth something. I mean, look at Blinky,” he jokes. “I’ll always want you around. You were strong enough to wield a weapon forged by one of the _greatest wizards in history_ , Claire! Even if you don’t have it anymore, that strength doesn’t go away now that you don’t have it.”

“...Wow,” she says. “That was actually really sweet.”

It’s his turn to frown. “Hey. I can be sweet.” He doesn’t say anything about how she wipes at her eyes with a hand. He doesn’t say anything about her grip on his hand tightening, either, even if he grips hers in return. 

“We both have some things to figure out, don’t we?” she says. “I hope Toby is doing better than we are.”

Thinking of Toby sends a flash of guilt through Jim, until he remembers something and he feels another smile spread across his face. “Actually, speaking of Toby,” he says, “why don’t we ask him ourselves? I promised him I’d give him a call when I had some daylight to burn.”

The look of delight that blooms across Claire’s face would turn Jim to stone if it glowed any brighter. “Really? Then what are we waiting for?!” 

She pulls Jim up as she jumps to her feet. The camp isn’t too far, and they run back to it together, still holding hands. Toby answers his phone on the first ring, and they stay on the phone for hours.

Blinkous wakes in the evening to find Jim and Claire seated at the edge of the camp, phone still on where it’s placed on the ground between them even as they lean against each other in their sleep. The Troll chuckles to himself quietly, bending to retrieve the device and walking a few feet away before whispering into it.

“Hello? Toby, are you still there?” he says, because there’s hardly anyone else both Jim and Claire would fall asleep talking to.

There’s a few moments of shuffling on the other line before, in a not-as-quiet whisper, “Almost.”

Blinky feels his heart swell all at once. “Aaarrrgghh, my old friend. I suspect you’ve found your young charge in a similar state as I have mine?”

“Sleeping,” Aaarrrgghh confirms. “On floor. Not good for back, I think.”

“I believe that back pains weren’t at the forefront of the children’s minds this evening,” Blinky replies. There are a million things he could say, but they’re all important enough to wait. Instead he simply listens to his friend’s low laughter.

“Happy,” Aaarrrgghh says.

“Yes,” Blinky agrees wholeheartedly. “Very happy indeed.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[PODFIC] interbellum (it's a civil war of the heart)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14840435) by [Chimeraspeak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chimeraspeak/pseuds/Chimeraspeak)




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